scarlet tide
by vega-de-la-lyre
Summary: “They’re calling me away,” he says, and it’s like the blade of a bayonet has been thrust squarely into her heart. McCoy/Chapel, Civil War!AU, sequel to southern anthem.


"Sit still, would you," Christine says, leaving off her row of neat stitches to glare at her patient. "I could make this a while lot more painful for you, if you'd like."

Charlie Parker grins at her lazily, but he is sweating with pain. "You wouldn't do that, Nurse," he says, swiping at his forehead. "I'm a genuine hero, me. Took a sword to the belly for my comrades, isn't that enough to earn some tender mercy from a lovely lady?"

She smiles archly and tugs at the thread. He hisses. "You're a fool, that's what you are," she says, finishing one final stitch. She pats at her waist absently in search of her scissors, but finding them missing, she bites off the thread instead. "Haven't seen more than ten people come in through here with sabre wounds since the war started, you get yourself gored silly. There now, how's that?"

He cranes his neck to get a good look. "Hell, you did it too neat," Charlie says, disappointed, twisting to pull his red flannel shirt back down. "That's not gonna leave hardly any scar at all."

McCoy's voice over her shoulder nearly makes her jump out of her skin. She tries to maintain an outward façade of calm, but her heart is pounding hard, and not just from surprise. "Charlie here giving you trouble, Nurse?"

He taps a folded letter against his hand as he fixes Charlie with a stern look, clearly in an uncharacteristically restless mood; he isn't the kind of person given over much to fidgeting. Despite the distraction, the raised eyebrow he favours Charlie with is enough to send anyone shaking in their boots, and Christine smiles.

"Nothing I can't handle," she says serenely. "Am I right, Sergeant Parker?"

"Yes, ma'am," Charlie says. "She's positively an angel of compassion, this one." His hands move to defend towards his wounded stomach, and McCoy's lips twitch.

"If you could stop by my office before you go home for the night, Mrs Dixon," he says, and drops a hand to her hair briefly, a carelessly intimate gesture that leaves her breathless and dizzy.

"Of course, sir," she says, hoping he doesn't notice the flush rising in her cheeks.

Charlie grins knowingly as McCoy walks away, then leans up to her and says in a teasing whisper, "Sweetheart, you're smitten."

"Oh, you hush," Christine tells him, but she is listening to McCoy's footsteps, slow and sure; she can still feel the heat and weight of his hand on her skull.

* * *

"Sit," he says, leaning against the front of his desk.

Christine leaves the door ajar and sits. He is looking at the floor, lips set tightly together.

"They're calling me away," he says suddenly, and it's like the blade of a bayonet has been thrust squarely into her heart. "A field hospital was taken out last week, they need all the hands they can get as close to the front as possible."

He pauses and looks at her; a beat goes by, then two, and she nods, feeling stunned and cold. She swallows, wets her lips, and opens her mouth:

"If they need people," she says, pleased at how deceptively level her voice comes out, "could I help?"

"No!" he says, leaning forward, reaching down to touch her chin lightly. "God, no. No. I need you here, looking after these idiots. You have to keep this place running for me."

She nods again, still strangled, wanting to grab his hand and not let go but he pulls it away quickly, brow furrowed, curling it into a fist.

"Sir?" she says around the lump in her throat.

"My wife," he says shortly, looking at his hands. "If something happens to me — "

Christine's heart twists sharply in her breast. She's not jealous, she tells herself. It's absurd to be jealous at a moment like this, she's a fool, a love-struck little girl.

"Of course," she says. "Don't worry, I'll… you know I'd take care of everything. Of course."

He leans back, visibly relieved. "You're the best man I've got, Miss Chapel," he says, smiling faintly.

"Christine," she says. "Christine."

"Yes, Christine," he agrees, smile fading. In the flickering lamplight his eyes are liquid-dark and unreadable.

* * *

She thinks about going down to the station to see him off; of course she does. But — she knows this fact, even as she hates it — it's not her place to do so. She's not his kin, not quite his colleague. She wakes early in the morning and lays her head against the cool windowpane, watching the rain fall on the street below; and when the whistle shrieks loud and shrill and she hears the groaning rumble of the train speeding away, the sounds twist the sliver of metal lodged in her chest more squarely into her heart.

Abruptly, Christine remembers that his family's not from anywhere near here, and his wife and daughter are out in the country, too far to come in and say goodbye to him.

* * *

  
The fall is a miserable one. The hospital feels empty and quiet without McCoy, but life goes on, the war goes on, new battles are fought and new men are injured and most days Christine is far too busy to wallow in misery and most nights, she's too tired to do anything but collapse into dreamless sleep when she gets back to her lonely rooms. There are moments, though, when the loss of him loss stings her anew, when she turns to him for advice, or in expectation of one perfectly raised eyebrow —

McCoy's replacement is an unmitigated ass. His name is James Daugherty, an old retired physician from Kentucky. He doesn't believe in women having anything to do with medicine, except to provide food and keep the patients in clean linen. His practises are archaic and rude, and it makes Christine's blood boil to see the way he treats the soldiers and his nurses.

He really isn't fond of Christine at all.

The year's first snow is falling when she receives the first letter from McCoy. It is wry and funny and entirely unexpected, and she reads and rereads it until it is coming apart at the folds. She pushes thoughts of his wife out of her head and writes back all the news of the hospital, because after all it's her life now; she doesn't know anything else to tell him about.

He's thinking of her; she marvels at the thought, treasures it in the dark corners of her heart.

* * *

Not too long after the year turns, the letters stop coming. The next few weeks are spent on tenterhooks, and when she struggles to the hospital one morning, holding her skirts out of the snow and mud, she notices a crowd forming around a newly-pasted casualty list in a dingy window. Her heart in her throat, she pushes through; the hastily-scrawled words swim and blur before her eyes when she sees _Dr L.H. McCoy, captured_, and her skirts drag through the slushy muck as she walks numbly back to the hospital.

Once there, Christine walks unseeingly through her ward, closes the door to what was once McCoy's office and leans against the frame momentarily, closing her eyes. The room was taken over by Frank Morgan — a junior surgeon under McCoy, young and precocious but now one of the most senior and sensible physicians they have — months ago but they've kept his desk pushed in the corner as it was in expectation of his return and she can imagines, for a short irrational moment, that she might still be able to smell him, smoke and bourbon and sweat, if she breathes deep enough.

She can't, and she opens her eyes.

The room now has, to her, the funereal air of a tribute to someone dear and forsaken. She feels like it should be dusty in here, cobwebbed and hung with black drapery; but he's not dead, she reminds herself fiercely, no matter the odds, he could come back, _he might still come back_ —

Christine sits down in his chair, smoothing her hands over the worn armrests. The battered tintype of his daughter, Joanna, catches her eye, and after a long fragile moment, she collects herself and sifts through the chaos of papers on his desk to find a blank sheet of notepaper and a pen.

_Dear Mrs McCoy_, she writes.

* * *

With McCoy gone for the indefinite future, Dr Daugherty becomes surer of his position, and more unbearable. Christine is no longer allowed to assist with anything significant at all; she is allowed to fetch drinks and change beds, but she's not allowed to go near supplies or medicine and can only dream of touching a patient or actually doing anything medical.

She is only grateful that she hasn't been relegated to the kitchen entirely.

* * *

She hears news of him for the first time from a young captain who's had the back of his thighs torn off by shrapnel. "Oh, yes," he says into his pillow as she opens the window by his bed. "Bones McCoy, we were in the clink together. He's still there? Poor son of a bitch."

She sits down, frozen. He reaches out to pat her hand, even though she's the one who's supposed to making his mind easy.

"It's really not all that bad," he says. "Food's better than we had on our own side, at any rate. And I'm sure he's recovering just fine from that bullet in the shoulder."

* * *

On one bleak day in spring, one muddy, bloody day of too many dead men, another day of enforced uselessness, Christine steps into the supply room, locks the door behind her, buries her face in an armful of clean linen and screams till her throat is hoarse.

It does little too relieve her feelings; and as the spring days lengthen into scorching hot summer ones, it only gets worse. The only comfort is the thought that McCoy wouldn't stand for this; he's no great advocate of women's suffrage or anything like that, but this he wouldn't tolerate, out of common sense if nothing else.

But she doesn't like to think of him.

* * *

Christine stumbles back into her ward one searingly warm evening after a hasty supper, dreading another evening of hand-holding and letter-writing. She's tired, and she's frustrated, and she almost regrets — not quite, not strongly enough to voice it even to herself — yes, she almost regrets running away from home in the first place, almost regrets choosing this path if all she's allowed to do is wring her hands and make a nuisance of herself. She is only here for his sake, to do justice in the faith he had in here; but she doesn't need to be wasting her time here, she can't stand it, not if they won't let her _help_ —

"Mrs Dixon!" Frank is perched on the edge of a patient's bed, rattling an open newspaper at her. "Come and have a look at this!"

"Watch that leg, boy," the grizzled old soldier in the bed grouches at him, "some of us are trying to get some sleep," and Frank shifts slightly on the bed out of his way but remains seated, unperturbed.

"What is it, Frank," Christine says tiredly, coming to stand over him; she squints at the tiny newsprint but she's too weary to try and make it out herself and she just looks at Frank expectantly, one hand on her hip.

"They're considering us surgeons non-combatants now," he says, and Christine stares at him now, her heart plummeting through her stomach. "Order just came down from General Lee. Not only are they not allowed to take us prisoner anymore, but they're sending the ones they got back home."

"Doctor McCoy," Christine says unsteadily, her blood roaring in her ears.

Frank grins up at her, batting away some flies. "He's coming home."

* * *

When she gets back to her rooms that night she cries for the first time since he told her he was going away, great giddy sobs that shake her whole body. She wraps her arms around a pillow and holds it tight, white-knuckled, trying desperately to keep from flying apart at her all too delicate seams.

* * *

It's an ugly grey morning more than three weeks later when she finally sees him again.

They'd taken him to a different hospital, a closer one, upon his release, sending him back here when he's deemed well enough for travel. Christine doesn't go out to meet him, even though every muscle in her body is firing to be near him; she's tense and exhausted the whole day, but she waits, does her work with a perfect mask of serenity and composure though her head is full of cotton and she doesn't know what she's doing from one minute to the next.

She breathes in and out, plumps pillows and patiently writes a letter home for a young soldier who's lost an eye from shrapnel, hoping distractedly that it doesn't come out all nonsense. Her eyes go to the window ever other moment, but there's nothing to be seen, just dark figures passing through the heavy humid fog.

The doors bang open, and she springs to her feet on instinct.

He looks both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful, because he's here and breathing and walking under his own power, standing in the same room as her, close enough for her to run over and touch him; terrible, because under his sun-browned skin he looks grey and faded, and his coat is red and brown with old blood around the shoulder and chest. McCoy's eyes meet hers, and he staggers; the uniformed man walking at his elbow dashes forward and catches him around the waist easily, supporting him when he sways.

"Put him here, Lieutenant," Dr Daugherty says briskly, and together they manage to lower McCoy onto an empty cot and get him out of his grimy, bloody coat.

"It ain't the shoulder I'm worried about," the soldier who'd been supporting McCoy says, "it's the damn cold he picked up in the hospital. He's been sick for weeks, and it's been getting worse the last two days. Mightn't it be pneumonia?"

Christine, standing at the foot of the bed, flexes her hands convulsively on the low iron frame. Daugherty gives her an irritated look, as though seeing her for the first time.

"Kindly clear away, Nurse Dixon," Dr Daugherty says, and she steps back, vibrating with frustration. The soldier gives her a sympathetic look.

"Bullet's still in there," he says, blue eyes flicking between Christine and Daugherty. He swipes at a trickle of blood that crawls down the side of his face. "I thought we'd better get it out, but he said it wouldn't be a problem where it was."

"No," Christine says automatically, pulling her eyes away from McCoy, who's just barely stirring. "No, don't worry. What about you, can I take a look at this?" She touches his forehead lightly; most of the blood is days old and crusted, but it's clearly reopened sometime recently and the gash could use a few stitches.

"No, ma'am, it's fine, don't bother about me. I have to get back to my regiment, I just wanted to see Bones here back home." He smiles, bright and cheerful. "Don't you worry about him, he's a stubborn little bastard, if you'll pardon my language. I'm sure he'll be just fine."

She isn't as confident as he is. McCoy's hands fist on the crisp white sheets, and his breath rattles deep in his chest.

* * *

It's one of the most difficult things she's ever done, to go about the hospital and perform her duties as normal, knowing McCoy is so close to her and having to pretend that she has no more concern for him than if, say, it were Daugherty lying in that bed — it hurts, and it's hard. She wants to talk to him, shake him for being so stupid, find out where it hurts and make it better, but she can't — even if he were awake enough to talk, which he isn't. She does her work with half her attention on his side of the room, listening to his laboured breathing, listening to Daugherty and Frank consult about what to do with him, and when she hears Daugherty tell Frank he's about to go in and retrieve the bullet she's too appalled to hold her tongue.

"Sir," she says, horrified, crossing the room swiftly. "He's sick and he's exhausted, he's too weak to even think about it, he'd lose far too much blood — "

They both turn to her, and Daugherty's lip curls. "What do you know about it?" he says, and Christine's cheeks burn. "Would you have his death on your hands? The metal might leach into his blood and poison him — it's a danger to leave it in."

"Not where it's at," she says, and bites back a scream of frustration. "He'll be fine! It's healing perfectly! Look at it, it's only a flesh wound, it's nowhere dangerous, he told that Lieutanant so himself!" It's true, and she can see it from here — the skin of his shoulder is pink and healthy and knitting itself together just fine, but she can hear her voice is rising and she sets her teeth together abruptly, because she's feeding every stupid delusion Daugherty's ever harboured, she's acting exactly as hysterical and emotional as he thinks she is.

Frank's eyes are steady, and he crosses his arms, waiting for her to go on.

"You stupid girl," Dr Daugherty says. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you dare touch him," Christine says recklessly. She sits down on the edge of McCoy's cot, skirts spreading around her, as though she might physically defend him from Daugherty's knives.

Daugherty's nostrils flare with indignation; if this were any other time, Christine would probably laugh at the sight. "If this is how you treat doctors around here?" he says, indignant, turning to Frank. Christine looks at him, too.

"This is how we treat the addle-brained, sir," Frank Morgan says curtly. "I'm with her, I'm afraid we'd be doing him far more harm by digging around in there. He needs to rest."

Christine's knees go weak with relief, and she is very grateful that she is already sitting.

Daugherty doesn't say anything. He goes purple, and then pale, and then he turns and leaves the room, back ram-rod straight. They watch him go, then Christine touches the back of her hand to McCoy's fever-hot forehead.

"I'm on your side," Frank tells her, very serious, "but you'd better hope McCoy here pulls through or we've got ourselves short one surgeon."

Christine reaches for McCoy's hand. It is limp and chill in hers.

* * *

Afterward, she does not much like to remember that night.

It's a weary, tense vigil. She draws the curtains around his bed and doesn't leave his side for an instant, listening to his harsh breathing, his hacking coughs, his fevered muttering, doing everything in her power to make him comfortable; Frank offers to bleed him, to dose him with opium or quinine, but he mostly leaves McCoy to her, trusting her to fetch him if he takes a turn either way.

Christine has never been one to turn to her faith, but if there was ever a night to do so —

She thinks she is too frightened to fall asleep, scared of what she might wake up too, but her exhaustion overtakes her and eventually she drifts off, her head pillowed on the rumpled bedclothes, face turned to him even in her sleep.

* * *

Christine wakes to feel fingers tangling in her loose curls, smoothing over her cheekbones and down the bridge of her nose, one nail dragging languorously slow across the full curve of her lower lip. When she opens her eyes and raises her head, McCoy is smiling at her.

"Morning, honey," he says, voice hoarse.

"Oh, God," Christine says brokenly, and leans into the hand that still cups her cheek. It doesn't feel cold or hot, but normal, blessedly normal; he looks white and tired, but he's awake, and he's alive, and she can't quite help her tears from spilling over. He brushes them away, still smiling. "I was sure you were dead."

He coughs; the sound is still wet and sick. "You need to work on your bedside manner, Nurse Chapel, that's not very nice," he says, and with his other hand he pulls at her waist until she is perched on the edge of his bed. "Takes a lot more than a Yankee bullet to take this old horse out of the race," he adds, tapping his thumb on her stomach, the wide span of his hand warm and sure on her skin.

"Don't tease," she says, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

His face sobers. "Hey now," he says, grip tightening reassuringly; his voice turns wondering. "You fought for me, didn't you? You saved me."

"Of course I did," she says, still sounding wobbly despite all her best efforts.

He slides his hand along her cheek and into her hair and says, "Come here, Christine."

As she leans over him, mindful of his shoulder, her hair tumbles into his face and the morning sunlight turns it to spun gold; he twines his fingers in it tight and pulls her even nearer, his lips an inch from hers, and when she closes that final distance between them with a kiss there isn't any notion of right or wrong in her head, just a frantically mounting urgency to have him while he is still hers, still here under her hands.

It is short and sweet; his lashes flutter as he pulls back, and he says softly, looking at her lips, "There now. World didn't end, did it?"

Christine rakes his hair back from his face, her eyes bright and full. She leans in to kiss him again, and it's answer enough for him; he kisses her back hard and hot and rough, his hand in the hollow of her back pulling her flush against him. A white light of pain blossoms behind her closed eyes when his hungry teeth scrape her lip, but it is preferable to the dull melancholy aching in her bones that reminds her that this can't last, that no matter how much she pretends, he isn't hers and won't ever be —

She rests her forehead against his, and he smiles against her lips, wrapping her small cold hands in his.


End file.
